A New Basis for Faith
 
Our traditional religions, rooted in 2000-year old Axial Age spirituality, tend to be belief-oriented. That is to say, being religious is understood as primarily a cognitive act of choosing to think that certain propositions, as articulated in specific creeds, sacred texts, dogmas, theologies, etc., are true. However, the credibility of sacred texts and detailed doctrinal beliefs has been significantly diminished by the epistemological humility which, as described in a previous post, has emerged as a consequence of recognizing the cultural and historical contextual nature of all such propositional statements.
 
But if the future of religion is not grounded in doctrine, dogma, and reliance on divinely revealed sacred texts, then what will it be based on? What’s left as the basis for religious faith once our confidence in these traditional Axial Age elements of religion has been substantially diminished?
 
We are suggesting that the religion of the future will likely be less rooted in declarative statements, theological arguments, and stories from ancient texts, and more grounded in the everyday awareness of the sacred quality of reality that remains available to people of faith even after the legitimacy of the doctrines and texts of the past have lost much of their credibility. In other words, religious faith will be grounded in experience, which is to say, an empirical awareness of the sacred dimension of existence in its countless manifestations. Religious experience will replace propositional belief as we move further into a post-Axial 21st century spirituality.
 
Understanding Religious Experience
 
Of course, one might reasonably ask: What exactly is a religious experience? What’s it like to have a religious experience? How do I have a religious experience?
 
Things get quite tricky here, since “religious experience” is an overly broad term that encompasses an extraordinary range of diverse and even sometimes contradictory experiences.  It also is something that, to someone who has never had such an experience, can seem to be remote, vague, and perhaps even unintelligible, while to the person who has had a religious experience, even if only on one occasion for a few seconds, the impact can be life changing and long lasting. So briefly, let’s try to make sense of it.
 
Put simply, religious experience in the most general terms simply refers to a deeply felt sense of the sacred, an awareness of Spirit, an immediate experience that conveys a sense that there is a spiritual dimension to existence, which in turn affirms a deep sense that we live in a meaningful Cosmos. Reality is experienced as more than just particles in various arrangements positioned in time and space. Reality is experienced as something with a fundamental, real, essential element of value, meaning, and goodness. Such an experience can occur in the context of the symbols and constructs of one’s own religion, but a religious experience can equally occur as simply a vague but powerful and convincing intuition which is completely independent of the beliefs and doctrines of any specific religious tradition. A religious experience is one which conveys a clear and powerful sense that there is “Something More” to reality than just matter and energy, and that Something More is what gives meaning and value and goodness to existence – even though the precise nature of that Something More might be vague and elusive.
 
Such an experience of Spirit is, of course, quite different from the cognitive act of belief in Spirit. It is quite different from an intellectual understanding of propositional statements found in doctrine and dogma. It is an experience which is direct, powerful, and laden with a sense of ultimate truth.
 
For someone who has not had a direct experience of Spirit, perhaps the best way to convey the unique nature of religious experience and its difference from traditional proposition-based faith is by analogy to something from everyday life: just as talking or reading about the taste of salt is one thing and actually experiencing the taste of salt is quite another, so with religious experience we see the difference between talking and reading about Spirit (in doctrines, dogma, sacred texts, etc.) and actually having a direct experiential encounter with the spiritual dimension of the Cosmos. Indeed, some would argue that religious experience is the very foundation of religion, with doctrines and texts representing inadequate attempts to put into words an actual experience of sacred reality, an experience which – not unlike the taste of salt, but magnified infinitely – can never be adequately put into words since what one is encountering – Spirit, God, the sacred – is so infinitely different than anything else that we experience as human creatures.
 
But, for reasons that we don’t have space to go into here, humans experience Spirit in many different ways. The ecstatic experience of an indigenous shaman, the meditative Samadhi of a Buddhist meditator, the emotional experience of a Pentecostal Christian, the Hindu’s experience of the sweet, loving quality of Lord Krishna, the Daoist experience of the Cosmic order of the Universe, Thoreau’s experience of the sacred quality of the natural world so beautifully described in the Solitude chapter of Walden: all of these are religious experiences in the sense that they are direct encounters with an aspect of the sacred or Spirit.
 
William James was perhaps the first to attempt to categorize the diversity of religious experience in his 1902 classic work, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Others have followed in James’ footsteps, including Ken Wilber’s more contemporary attempt to categorize different types of spiritual experience in terms of a hierarchical model of transpersonal states of consciousness.
 
But religious experience often is difficult to categorize since it can be just part of everyday life, occurring with such profound subtlety that it can be difficult to even articulate exactly what constitutes the essential characteristics of such an experience. Accordingly, when we suggest that religion in the 21st century will be grounded in religious experience, we are not suggesting that future believers will be full-blown mystics who walk around in something like altered states of consciousness rooted in intense, prolonged, ecstatic experiences of the Sacred. Such overwhelming, rapturous experiences do indeed occur, but they are just one type of spiritual experience. Equally valid and compelling is the everyday, ordinary sense of a spiritual dimension to the Cosmos, an often vague but also confident sense that there really is “Something More” than a Universe of time, space, matter, and energy. This perception of a spiritual dimension does not require intensive and difficult spiritual practices leading to a clearly identifiable moment of overwhelming spiritual illumination. Certainly such extraordinary religious experiences happen, and they are profoundly meaningful in the spiritual lives of those who have them. But for the everyday person of faith who has neither the opportunity nor the interest to pursue the rigorous practices that lead to such experiences, there is the simple, humble, easily acquired sense of Something – a Something which is supremely Good and which confers meaning to the Cosmos, even in spite of the daily messes, challenges, and tragedies of normal, everyday human existence. Leaving doctrines and sacred texts aside, each person still has access to those subtle, quiet, yet powerfully meaningful moments when one senses the presence of Spirit, the presence of the indefinable Something More that has never been adequately captured in doctrinal statements or pronouncements in sacred texts.
 
 
Signs of a Transition
 
We can already see the emergence of this more experientially-oriented approach to religion in the growth of the “spiritual but not religious” population. Numerous polls have consistently found a steady growth in the number of people who, on the one hand, do not consider themselves to be “religious” in the sense of formally belonging to an existing tradition or accepting the doctrines of a given faith, while on the other hand identifying as “believers” in the sense of affirming the existence of a spiritual reality. In a sense, this trend is the leading edge of what might likely continue to evolve from a fringe movement to the most common expression of religion in the future: experiential, or empirical spirituality.
 
Some would contend that returning to a more experiential-based faith will actually be equivalent to a return to a meaning of “faith” that brings us back to the origin of religion and that from which verbal expressions of faith (texts, doctrine, dogma, etc.) function as secondarily derived elements. Belief in a proposition about an event in history whose veracity must be accepted without evidence, or “blind faith,” is quite different from belief in a statement about the nature of reality that can be confirmed by one’s own immediate awareness, or experiential faith. In the present era when many of the traditional bases for religious faith are no longer credible for much of the educated population that thinks in 21st century terms, religious experience stands out as the most reliable, substantial, unassailable basis for belief in a spiritual reality. Hence, rather paradoxically, after three millennia religion may be evolving forward toward something that was prominent in the distant past: a direct, immediate awareness of the presence of the spiritual dimension of the Cosmos.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                          The Future of Sacred Texts
 
If human consciousness evolves over time, it follows that our capacity for perception and comprehension also changes over time. Humans in the 21st century, operating in a different mode of consciousness than, say, humans in the Paleolithic era, simply perceive certain aspects of reality in different ways than did our ancient ancestors. It would follow that as our consciousness evolves, our capacity to perceive or sense the spiritual dimension also evolves. For example, the vestiges of religion from the late Paleolithic era suggest that human consciousness of the sacred at that time differed from the awareness of the sacred that developed several centuries later in what we now call the Axial Age religions (for a more precise model of the evolution of human consciousness, see the work of the Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser,whose model identifies the stages of archaic, magical, mythical, mental (rational), and integral consciousness. Gebser’s model was subsequently expanded by Ken Wilber to include transpersonalspiritual modes of consciousness).
 
If the evolution of human consciousness includes changes in the human capacity to perceive the spiritual dimension, it further follows that attempts to articulate our sense of the sacred also change over time in conjunction with these changing modes of consciousness. Humans not only experience a sense of Spirit, they also try to communicate this sense through language, and when this communication becomes written, we have what have come to be generically referred to as sacred texts, as found in all of the major religious traditions.
 
But as we enter into the 21st century, we must ask if the existing sacred texts, as the product of an earlier modality of spiritual consciousness, are still relevant. Some would argue that existing religious texts have lost their credibility in light of the rational/scientific mode of awareness that was not as fully developed when those texts were composed as it is today. Belief in a seven day creation was more credible when a pre-scientific mode of awareness rooted in a static concept of the universe was dominant. But that is no longer the case.
Others would argue that, as a consequence of the expanding circle of moral concern that has accompanied the slow evolution of spiritual consciousness, some existing sacred texts are not morally credible, as seen for example in the portrayal of God as a temperamental, capricious, angry, vengeful being, who sometimes seems to act in a manner that would be considered morally unacceptable if engaged in by a teenager today.
 
But such a wholesale rejection of these revered ancient texts would seem to be a misguided over-reaction. Yes, we should be honest in acknowledging that these texts contain much material that simply is not credible to a fully-informed 21st century sensibility. But we also must acknowledge that there is much wisdom in these texts, and this wisdom accounts for the enduring influence of these writings despite the fact that certain parts of the texts have lost credibility.
 
And yet, as we move forward into the 21st century and beyond, clearly we need to re-examine our understanding of these ancient texts (their content, how they originated, their validity in the context of a 21st century sensibility, etc.) and, perhaps more importantly, consider what the sacred texts of a post-Axial type of religion might look like. This is an enormous issue, which is explored in more detail in Thinking About Religion in the 21st Century. For our purposes here, perhaps it would be easier to first affirm what the sacred texts of the future forms of religion are not going to be like:

• Sacred texts will no longer be interpreted in the literalist manner of religious fundamentalism. Recognized as the product of the human sense of Spirit rather than an unchanging and infallible revelation, future sacred texts will be appreciated as the “best guesses” of well-meaning believers, valued as such but also subjected to scrutiny as human products
• Sacred texts will not be supportive of an exclusivist religious perspective, according to which God has issued a special revelation to a particular group of people, offering one and only one path to salvation
• Sacred texts will not function as explanations of natural phenomena. They will not be a substitute science
• Sacred texts will not be understood as expressions of eternal, unchanging truths about the nature of Spirit, but rather will be viewed in the epistemological context of all human knowledge, which is to say in the context of the recognition of an evolving consciousness which leads to changes over time in the human perception of Spirit

 
With regard to positive content, an evolutionary spirituality would suggest that the sacred texts of the religion of the future will likely be:

• Rooted in theological minimalism derived from a sense of spiritual epistemological humility, as described in detail in our previous post on Spiritual Minimalism
• Non-parochial, or texts that are not the limited expressions of the necessarily partial perspective of a specific population or time
• Consistent with a contemporary cosmology, grounded in a full awareness of the vastness of deep space, deep time, and the ever-evolving nature of the Cosmos
• Expressive of the Cosmic Sense:  If there is one predominant theme that is found amidst the wild diversity of contemporary spiritual writings outside of the traditional religions, it is a larger, more expansive sense of Spirit, cleansed of the anthropomorphisms that in the past have been attached to Spirit. It is a sense of the Cosmic dimension of the sacred which expresses a more expansive sense of Spirit than that which we usually (although not always) find in mainstream, Axial Age-originated, traditional religions
• Global, trans-human morality: Moral teachings that will reflect the contemporary reality of the evolved human sense of ethical responsibility toward not only the human realm but also toward other species, the biosphere, and indeed the entire the planet – in other words, a global morality

 
The skeptic of this perspective on the future of sacred texts might understandably ask: where will these texts come from? If there is no revelation from God in the manner of the Abrahamic traditions or the words of an enlightened Buddha-like being, where will the content of such texts come from?
 
We should first pay tribute to traditional sacred texts and acknowledge that we are in no manner suggesting that there will be a wholesale rejection of those revered writings. To the contrary, one source of future sacred texts will be the existing sacred texts that were written over the course of the past 2500 years. As acknowledged above, amidst the parochial prejudices of those writings we also find abiding universal truths, and such meaningful content from the traditional texts should be retained. The beatitudes of Jesus, exhortations toward social justice in the prophets of the Hebrew Bible and Qur’an, the moral aphorisms of Confucius, the cosmic sense of the Neo-Confucian Western Inscription and the Hindu Upanishads, the depiction of divine love and human devotion in the Bhagavad Gita – we could go on and on with examples of the abiding wisdom which is found in traditional texts and explains their persistence over the centuries.
 
But the essential content of the sacred texts of the future is likely to develop organically (as did the sacred texts of the existing traditions, despite the denial of such origins by many believers) as the product of the ongoing spiritual experience of humans whose mode of consciousness makes possible a sense of Spirit that resonates with contemporary believers. Those texts which most effectively articulate the sense of Spirit available to humans in the 21st century will over time make their way into collections that function, as do existing sacred texts, as guides to the religious life, even while those texts are also understood as the product of human authors and exceptional human spiritual experience, rather than supernatural revelations.
 
Humans – as least for now – need words to communicate, and words inevitably get strung together to construct more complex ideas, which eventually find their way into books. So humans in the 21st century, in an effort to communicate the sense of Spirit which they experience, will certainly produce the equivalent of sacred books, with the differences from traditional sacred texts referenced above. Saying nothing is not an option, even when we realize that whatever we say is necessarily a partial and imperfect effort to describe that which can be dimly experienced or sensed or intuited, but never adequately described. So we will continue to say something about Spirit and continue to produce “sacred” texts, but hopefully with a new sense of honesty, humility, and wonder.
 
 
 
 

Evolutionary Religion Defined

The explorations on this website suggest a strong connection between religion and an evolutionary cosmology. That is, in order to think meaningfully about religion in the 21st century, we need to recognize that we live in a universe that evolves. One can debate the specific mechanism of evolution (traditional Darwinism, Neo-Darwinism, even contemporary non-materialist interpretations such as that of Teilhard de Chardin), but the reality of the process of evolution (both biological and cultural) is assumed here as a necessary component of our understanding of religion and its possible future expressions.
 
In a sense, then, like many contemporary explorations into religion from a non-traditional point of departure, we are working from the perspective of what is sometimes called evolutionary religion.
 
But here is the problem with “evolutionary religion”: there is no clear definition of what it means! Hence, before proceeding further, in this post we hope to at least partially clarify what is meant by evolutionary religion.
 
Immediately, however, we run into a challenge: there are two quite different ways in which “evolutionary religion” is being defined and used. Those two different definitions are for the most part compatible but, as we hope to clarify below, one definition tends to restrict itself to a descriptive function, while the other moves beyond empirical description to suggest that evolution itself has a spiritual dimension. The first definition sees religion as the product of the evolutionary process; the second definition sees the evolutionary process itself as an actual manifestation of Spirit, meaning that in the broadest sense, evolution is a spiritual phenomenon.
 
In an effort to sort out and clarify this distinction, we will differentiate these two basic interpretations of evolutionary religion as weak/descriptive evolutionary religion and strong/spiritual evolutionary religion. “Weak” and “strong” are not used here in evaluative, critical terms to suggest a difference in qualitative value. Rather, the terms are used with reference to the intended scope of the two definitions, as should become clearer below.
 
 Weak/Descriptive Evolutionary Religion
 
Weak, or descriptive, evolutionary religion asserts that religion changes or evolves over time, generally in the direction of a fuller understanding or sense of Spirit, and this evolutionary quality of religion is understood to be the product of an evolutionary process (biological and cultural) that has produced conscious beings which have the capacity to perceive (however dimly and imperfectly) the existence of a spiritual dimension to the Cosmos.
 
Evolutionary religion of the weak/descriptive sort does not negate the possibility of discrete acts of divine revelation such as those which form the basis for most traditional religions, but it does suggest that belief in such events is not necessary to be a religious believer.
 
Weak/descriptive evolutionary religion is a naturalistic account of religion with a twist: whereas as naturalism is usually equated with materialism or physicalism, weak evolutionary religion suggests that the “natural” process of evolution in the Cosmos has resulted in at least one species (humans – and perhaps more elsewhere in the Universe) which has developed the capacity to sense or intuit that the totality of the “natural” world includes more than just the dimension of matter/time/space/energy: the totality of the Cosmos includes Spirit, and this is known (again, quite dimly) not through a discrete top-down act of divine revelation in the past but rather through our evolved human capacity to perceive the spiritual dimension of the Cosmos.
 
Weak/descriptive evolutionary religion is exemplified by the recent work of contemporary philosopher J.L. Schellenberg, both in his more strictly philosophical works and in a shorter work accessible to the general reader, Evolutionary Religion. Schellenberg situates the ever-changing nature of religion in the context of a fully informed temporal contextualization, which is to say, a recognition that the human species is at a very early stage of its historical existence, and as such should be seen as an “immature’ species which has only begun to penetrate the nature of Spirit. As humanity matures, our understanding of Spirit will expand, and religion will change – perhaps in rather dramatic fashion. But even though Schellenberg asserts that religion is the product of an evolving and progressive understanding of Spirit, he does not characterize the evolutionary process itself as a spiritual one.

Strong/Spiritual Evolutionary Religion
 
By contrast, strong/spiritual evolutionary religion does not hesitate to describe the evolutionary process as a spiritual process which is somehow driven by a spiritual force toward a spiritual goal. There are several examples of strong/spiritual evolutionary religion, but three of the most notable ones are found in the works of Teilhard de Chardin, Aurobindo, and Ken Wilber. We will touch on all three in future posts, but for now, just to provide a stronger sense of what strong/spiritual evolutionary religion is all about, let’s take a brief look at Teilhard
 
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a French priest and paleontologist. In many ways, Teilhard was a paradox, as evidenced for instance in how he remained a faithful ordained Catholic priest throughout his life while building a successful secular career as a paleontologist, all the while developing an evolution-based theology that reflected such a radical departure from traditional Christian dogma that he was forbidden to publish or teach by the Catholic Church. Only after his death were Teilhard’s extensive writings on an evolutionary interpretation of religion transformed from mimeographed sheets secretly shared among a largely hidden but growing community of sympathizers to mainstream publication and both widespread acclaim and harsh criticism (by both traditional Christians and materialist scientists).
 
The foundation of Teilhard’s thought is the acceptance of an evolutionary cosmology: the starting point of Teilhard’s theology and the theme that runs through every page is the recognition that we live in a Universe that has evolved over a period of close to 14 billion years. Teilhard may have remained a committed Catholic, but his writings contain scant references to Bible passages or church dogma. Where references to Bible passages and Christian dogma are found, they are often in the context of a cosmicized interpretation that traditional Christians are not likely to recognize.
 
Teilhard believed that an honest, empirical, rational examination of evolution, free from any sectarian religious prejudice, demonstrated that there is an orderliness, or teleology, to the process. Specifically, over long periods of time (and with periods of regression), evolution eventually produces increased levels of complexity in the Universe (from simple particles to elements to compounds to unicellular life forms to multi-cellular life forms to, eventually, entities with sufficient complexity for something new to emerge in the Universe: consciousness, thought, subjectivity, interiority). In the human species this evolved consciousness includes an awareness of the non-physical, or spiritual dimension of the Cosmos. In a sense, in humanity, the Cosmos awakens and becomes conscious of itself. Religion is the product of humanity’s attempts to make sense of this awakening sense of Spirit.
 
Teilhard saw no evidence to suggest that this evolutionary process (which he called the law of complexity/consciousness) would cease with the emergence of the human species, and suggested that evolution will continue in the direction of increasingly complex entities with increasingly expansive consciousness, culminating in what he called (some would argue rather ambiguously and mysteriously) the Omega Point (bear with me here: Omega Point is perhaps the fuzziest piece of Teilhard’s thought, so we will need to wait until a later post to tackle it).
 
Teilhard believed that we can’t explain either the orderly, progressive nature of evolution, or the emergence of a non-physical reality (consciousness) from matter, in purely materialist terms. For Teilhard, the explanation requires acknowledgment of a Spirt which initiates, drives, and is the goal of the process: God – although a God that might not look very familiar to traditional theists.
 
Remarkably, while Teilhard was developing his evolutionary theology, the one-time anti-British Indian revolutionary, Aurobindo Ghose, developed a remarkably similar model of evolutionary spirituality, apparently without knowledge of Teilhard’s similar and near-simultaneous work.
 
More recently, the prolific but controversial transpersonal/integral thinker Ken Wilber has proposed his own evolutionary spirituality model, largely free from any sectarian connection to an existing religious tradition (unlike Teilhard who, at least nominally, remained a Roman Catholic Christian, and Aurobindo, whose evolutionary vision was rooted in the Hindu Vedanta tradition).
 
Differences between these three (and other) proponents of a strong version of evolutionary spirituality are many, but Teilhard, Aurobindo, Wilber, and other strong spiritual evolutionaries all agree that evolution and religion are entirely compatible, and that the evolutionary process itself is the result of the gradual emergence of Spirit in the Cosmos. Religion is not about faith in an event of supernatural revelation in the past, but rather about recognition of the ongoing and ever-expanding presence of Spirit in the Cosmos, culminating for the moment, at least in our little corner of the Universe, in a species that has achieved the epistemological capacity to intuitively sense the presence of Spirit.
 
Going Forward
 
As we explore evolutionary religion in future posts, we will always do so from at least a weak/descriptive angle, and at times we will explore various expressions of the strong/spiritual evolutionary religion model.
 
In all cases, we will be examining religion from the point of view that in order for religion to remain credible to a fully informed 21st century sensibility, it must be accepted as something that, like consciousness, evolves over time. We have arrived at a key point of transition from the traditional static Axial Age religions of the past to a post-Axial form of evolutionary religion whose contours have barely begun to emerge, leading to a situation of considerable confusion and uncertainty for those who reject the religions of the past but do not see any viable alternatives emerging. But they will emerge.
 

​

Defining a “fully informed 21st century sensibility”

Introduction
On this blog site and in the forthcoming book, Thinking About Religion in the 21st Century, we frequently refer to a “21st century sensibility,” and suggest that in light of that sensibility, religion in the coming years will change dramatically as certain aspects of traditional religions, founded 2000 and more years ago in the Axial Age, lose their credibility. So given the significant role of this phrase, perhaps we should take a moment to define what is meant by a “21st century sensibility.”
 
First, let’s clarify what a 21st century sensibility does not mean: it certainly is not meant to suggest that humans in the 21st century have achieved some superior state of enlightenment. Intellectually, morally, spiritually, and in many other ways contemporary humans remain very imperfect creatures with a remarkable capacity to think irrationally, make mistakes, do great harm to each other, do perhaps even greater harm to the non-human parts of the planet, and just in general, think and act in a manner that is indicative of a very imperfect species. As traditional Christian theology would put it, humanity continues to provide ample evidence of our “fallen” status.
 
But amidst that general continuation of human imperfection, there clearly are certain ways in which humans today think and act differently than humans did during the Axial Age when the existing world religions originated. Humanity, while still far from perfect and, one might argue, a threat to the existence of the entire planet, has nonetheless changed in some meaningful ways, and it’s those meaningful changes (existing side by side with the perennial human flaws) which we are referring to when we reference a 21st century sensibility. Specifically, we would suggest that this sensibility includes (but is not limited to) the following components:
 
1. Historical awareness
Humans in the 21st century display a widespread historical awareness. We recognize that things change over time. This change includes human institutions, including religion. In order to understand the nature and value of something, it is necessary to investigate its historical context and development: what were the circumstances that led to its origin, what circumstances influenced its changes over time, etc. As applied to religion, this entails a considerable skepticism about the belief that religious texts, doctrines, rituals, and authority structures have a divine origin. Indeed, an entire field of study, the History of Religions, developed in the twentieth century based on this basic premise.
Any credible perspective on religion must take into account this historical dimension.
 
2. Scientific awareness
The explanatory power of science in explaining phenomena in the world of matter, or the “natural” world, is so overwhelming that the acceptance of scientific explanation in the 21st century hardly needs elaboration here. As applied to religion in the 21st century, however, acceptance of this role of science means that any credible religious perspective must be compatible with the scientific explanation of the natural world. Science works as an explanatory device for understanding the realms of matter/energy, and a credible religion must acknowledge this.
 
3. Post-mythic consciousness
The existing traditional religions emerged at a time when myth (stories about superhuman beings performing super-human tasks) was commonly used as an explanatory device, especially with regard to aspects of the world which were seen as mysteries. Lacking an explanation of why the sun consistently rose in the East and set in the West according to a rather precise pattern, stories were created about a god (Apollo, Surya, and many more) who rode or otherwise controlled the orderly movement of this heavenly body.
But mythic explanations have been supplanted by scientific explanations with regard to natural phenomena, and a credible 21st century religion must accept this fact. Religion which is rooted in supernatural explanations of scientifically explainable natural phenomena is not credible to a fully-informed 21st century citizen.
This does not mean that religion has no basis! To the contrary, this entire site, and Thinking About Religion in the 21st Century, are both an extended argument in support of religion, but a religion that is credible to a 21st century sensibility. This means a religion that is grounded not in mythic explanations of natural phenomena but rather in faith in the basic assertion that we live in a Universe in which meaning and value are real, fundamental, ontological elements. A 21st century spiritual outlook is one that affirms that while there is indeed a transcendent meaning to our existence, that meaning and its related moral value can no longer be effectively described and communicated through ancient mythic language.
 
4. Critical sensibility
The notion of a critical sensibility is not so much something different from the above three components of a 21st century sensibility, but rather a category that underlies all three.
By “critical”, of course, we do not mean negative criticism per se, but rather an orienting perspective that always looks for deeper explanations and does not settle for how things look at first  glance or how things are commonly understood by the prevailing unexamined beliefs and ideals of one’s culture. Whether looking at natural phenomena or human/cultural phenomena, including religion, a 21st century sensibility seeks to understand the origin and nature of things, incorporating the categories of historical, scientific, and post-mythic consciousness which we have described above.
 
This is problematic for certain aspects of traditional, Axial Age-based religions. A 21st century religion must be one that can stand up to such critical scrutiny, and traditional religions, at least in certain ways, cannot do so for many contemporary citizens. Hence, as we have proposed from the beginning: religion needs to change, and in some ways radically so.
 
4. Cross-cultural/global perspective
The existing religions all originated at a time when communication between distant cultures was non-existent for most humans and severely limited even to the elites who had sufficient wealth and power to travel long distances. This meant that, 2000 years ago, it was easy to believe in the god of your own culture since you had little or no exposure to any alternatives.
But dramatic changes in transportation, communication, and literacy are slowly but steadily transforming humanity from a localized to a global species. Given this accessibility to the ideas, values, practices, etc. of other cultures, it is irresponsible for a 21st century citizen to narrow-mindedly cling to the notion that only his/her culture holds the “right” ideas. We live in the context of global knowledge, and our consciousness should reflect this accordingly. When applied to religion, this global consciousness means that allegiance to claims of religious exclusivity by traditions which emerged in isolated cultures of the past loses all credibility. The religion of the future must be a religion that incorporates elements from any and all traditions. The religion of the future must be globally-grounded, not parochial, and to the extent that traditional religions refuse to recognize this, they are likely to wither away.
 
5. Global moral sensibility
Over the centuries, the human sense of moral responsibility has moved in a slow but ever-widening circle. Whereas early humans might have felt a sense of responsibility only to their family, this eventually expanded to a sense of moral responsibility to larger units, from tribe to clan to ethnic group. With the emergence of the classical civilizations, we see moral responsibility extended beyond kin and tribal connections to members of one’s larger socio-political unit, such as a nation-state or empire. But in a 21st century sense of moral responsibility, that sense of responsibility is extended, at a minimum, to all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, etc. Moral responsibility has assumed a global scope. Some would further suggest that a truly contemporary morality extends beyond the human species to other sentient beings – animals, plants, perhaps the entire biosphere, as we see in the ecological/environmental ethics that, while virtually unknown a mere century ago, are now quite commonplace, taught to children as early as kindergarten.
As applied to religion, this means that a credible, morally acceptable 21st century spirituality must be one that includes such a global morality, and existing religious traditions, which emerged in the Axial Age with a more confined and restrictive sense of moral responsibility, may find it difficult to remain relevant in the coming years and decades.
 
So what’s the point?
 
We are suggesting that these components of a “21st century sensibility” are representative of how increasing numbers of people are thinking today. Certain ways of thinking have become widespread in the early 21st century to a degree which simply was not the case as late as the mid-20th century. The “average” sensibility has changed. What could once be found in the thought of exceptional individuals is now found in the general population.
 
As applied to religion, this means that there are certain aspects of the way that many people think today that are incompatible with components of the traditional Axial religions. Consciousness has evolved. Hence our view of the world has evolved.
And now religion, or our understanding of Spirit, must play catch-up and similarly evolve.
 
To the extent that we are simply honest with ourselves (intellectually, morally, and spiritually) at the beginning of the 21st century, adherence to many traditional religious texts, creeds, doctrines, and practices won’t work. But the alternative isn’t disbelief: rather, the alternative is a form of belief that is appropriate to our time, a 21st century spirituality which is still in its infancy.

​Natural vs. Revealed Religion
 
In the previous post we suggested that religion should be seen as the product, rather than an enemy, of evolution – which is to say that religion owes its existence to the long process of the evolution of human consciousness. There are many ramifications of this naturalistic evolutionary understanding of religion, which we will explore in this and subsequent posts.

To begin, consider two very different models of the origin of religion, traditionally referred to as revealed religion and natural religion.

The revealed religion model views religion as being the product of a top-down act of revelation from a deity (usually male) to humanity, with that act occurring at a specific point or points in the distant past, leading to the creation of a sacred text which contains the content of that revelation. This is the understanding of religion that dominates the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this model, religious knowledge and salvation are dependent on such a revelation.

The natural religion model views religion as the product of the evolved human capacity to know God or Spirit, and hence is not dependent on a specific revelation event. In this model, a revelation event is not necessarily denied, but neither is a revelation necessary for humans to sense the spiritual dimension of reality.

Clearly, on this site, which is addressed to contemporary persons who do not find traditional religion based solely on belief in an unverifiable past event to be a credible approach to faith, we are advocating for a contemporary, evolutionary version of natural religion.

As I have suggested elsewhere (Thinking About Religion in the 21st century, 7-9, 189-190), we can look at religion as simply a natural product of the long, slow evolutionary development of the Cosmos, from the Big Bang 14 billion years ago through the emergence of elementary particles to simple elements to complex compounds to molecules to simple life forms to complex life forms which, eventually, produced the species which we identify as human, a species with a sufficiently complex neurological system to allow the emergence of something quite remarkable: reflective consciousness. Part of human consciousness consists of the capacity to perceive and reflect on sensory experience (sight, touch, sound, etc.). But the most remarkable development in the evolution of human consciousness occurred with the appearance of the capacity to perceive super-sensory aspects of the Cosmos. Human consciousness, in other words, evolved to the point where it made possible the perception (admittedly vague, dim, and intermittent) of Something More than the sensory world, Something More than the realm of time, space, matter, and sensory experience. Human consciousness evolved to the point where humans acquired the capacity to perceive Spirit, by whatever name one might choose to call it. And religion, including sacred texts and accounts of revelatory events, can be seen as the product of humanity’s attempts to make sense of, harness, articulate, tame, tell stories about, and otherwise master that Spiritual dimension that the human consciousness had evolved the capacity to sense.

Or as put in Thinking About Religion:
“There is reason to believe, in other words, that humans have developed an innate capacity for spiritual experience, or an innate capacity to experience their connectedness to part of something larger than their individual embodied self. Some have suggested that this spiritual capacity is an evolving aspect of human perception, such that just as humans have slowly evolved the capacity to engage in increasingly complex rational calculations, so they also have slowly evolved the capacity to directly experience the spiritual nature of the unitive reality that is the essence of spiritual experience. If this is the case, one could postulate that religious experience of this sort will continue to become more and more common in the coming centuries. “(189-190)

From this perspective, religion is the natural product of the evolution of human consciousness. This does not in any way diminish the truth of the fundamental religious insight that Spirit/God/the Scared/Ultimacy/a Spiritual Dimension exists. To the contrary, this model provides support for such an insight, since it grounds that insight in empiricism and consciousness, albeit in a more expansive sense of empiricism and consciousness than traditional religion and science have been inclined to grant.
Not only does this model free religious belief from dependence on a sacred text and belief in a top-down revelation, but it also provides support for our position that religion is constantly (slowly) changing, and as such we should anticipate the continued evolution of consciousness and spiritual awareness into the future, leading to new expressions of religious belief and practice.
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So for the 21st century citizen who is reluctant to identify as spiritual because of an unwillingness to accept the validity of a religious text grounded in supernatural revelatory events from centuries ago, another approach to the spiritual life is available: simply follow the natural path of the evolution of the Cosmos which has led to the emergence of beings (including you) with the intuitive capacity to sense the existence of Spirit.

The Traditional Perspective: Evolution as the Enemy of Religion

Traditionally, religion and evolution seem to have been locked in a perpetual battle. From the early years of Darwin’s Origin of Species, to the infamous and nationally covered Scopes monkey trial, right up to the current “Creation Science” movement, believers (mostly, although not exclusively, Christian evangelical fundamentalists) have characterized belief in evolution as incompatible with belief in God, and especially with belief in God as understood by evangelicals.  Often this battle is situated in the larger context of a literalist interpretation of the Bible: since the theory of evolution offers an account of the origin of the human (and other) species that is different from the Genesis account of direct creation by an act of a transcendent God, to accept the truth of evolution necessarily implies the rejection of the infallible authority of the Bible, and for many Christians that is unacceptable.

Of course, not all Christians are fundamentalists or Biblical literalists, and there are many who identify as Christians and accept the theory of evolution (of particular note, for example, was the French priest/paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose work attempted to present a complete reconciliation of religion and evolution. His work will be examined here in a later post). Nonetheless, it’s fair to say that the dominant factor in the religion-evolution relationship over the past century and longer, has been the evangelical/fundamentalist interpretation of that relationship, according to which Christian faith requires a literal interpretation of the Bible which necessarily leads to a rejection of evolution.

But there is a much different way to think about the relationship between religion and evolution!

An Alternative Perspective: Evolution as the Source of Religion

Many religions understand the origin of their tradition to be the result of a divine act of top-down revelation, where a transcendent divine being communicates a revelation to humanity, with that revelation (Torah, Bible, Qur’an, Veda, etc.) functioning as the origin and foundation of their religion.
But let’s consider another account of how religion might have emerged, doing so from an evolutionary perspective that does not in any way deny the reality of a spiritual dimension but at the same time eliminates the conflict between religion and evolution.

To begin, let’s look at the big picture of evolution – the really big picture, sometimes referred to as Big History:
The Universe originated approximately 13.7 billion years ago with a singularity in which space/time/energy first came into existence – the Big Bang. The subsequent development of the Universe has been one in which entities of increasing complexity evolved: from the primal energy to elementary particles to protons and neutrons to simple atoms to stars to galaxies. Collapsing stars, or supernova, in these early galaxies led to explosions which resulted in more complex elements and complex structures which became our solar systems, in which complex bodies composed of various elements orbited around a central star. In one such galaxy, this included the planet on which we reside, Earth. The evolution of increasingly complex structures continued on Earth, which was positioned in just the right location for the eventual emergence of cells, then multi-cellular organisms, then complex living species (fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals), eventually leading to humans.

And here is where things get really interesting! Humans continued to evolve, as individuals and as a group, and in a variety of ways: socially, culturally, psychologically, economically, politically, etc.
For our purposes, though, the most important element of the ongoing evolution of humans was the evolution of human consciousness, or the capacity to perceive and be aware of increasingly fuller aspects of reality. Early humans, like the mammals which they evolved from, had the capacity for sensory experience: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, etc. But over time, human consciousness developed to a point which exceeded that of previous species, in that humans developed the capacity to perceive or sense (however dimly) the existence of what we might call super-sensory aspects of reality. At some point, probably more than 40,000 years ago, humans acquired a sense that there was something more than that which they could perceive through the ordinary five senses, something that (to use a word that makes sense to us today but of course would have been meaningless at the time) transcended the more common everyday dimension of stuff. From this point onward, humans differed from all other living creatures in the sense that, in addition to sensory experience of stuff, humans had the capacity to experience or sense (again, however dimly), the presence of “something more” which could not be directly seen, touched, etc., but which was nonetheless part of what is real.

In some ways, this unique human characteristic was a matter of recognizing abstractions: concepts such as number, time, space, direction, etc. In other words, the capacity of the human mind clearly evolved or grew over time: the earliest humans could not use written and oral symbols to communicate, which is to say that early human consciousness did not include abstract thinking; eventually, of course, humans not only developed this capacity but enlarged and refined it into complex languages capable of communicating subtle internal mental and emotional perceptions and states.

But for our purposes, the most unique aspect of this evolving human sense of the nature of reality was the recognition of something that existed that was qualitatively different from anything that was experienced in the realm of time, space, matter, form, etc. Early humans had the capacity to perceive and experience that aspect of reality that was available through sensory experience: that which could be seen, touched, smelled, etc. But at some point in the evolution of human consciousness, our species acquired the capacity to sense that there was, so to speak, a supersensory aspect of reality, something which really existed, but was not directly perceived in the same manner as most aspects of the sensory realm. Humans acquired, however dimly and however poorly and variously articulated, a sense of a spiritual dimension, or the presence of the sacred as a part of reality. So again, using language that makes sense to us today, we could say that human consciousness evolved to the point that humans acquired the ability to sense the presence of Spirit: humans were the first species to acquire the capacity to sense the existence of a spiritual dimension of the Cosmos, and thus we have the birth of religion, or the attempt to articulate, make sense of, and respond to, the intuitive awareness of the spiritual dimension of the Cosmos. 

Of course, how and when this happened is and will remain a mystery. Sceptics are fond of offering simplistic reductionist explanations of the origin of religion (the sociological necessity to maintain order in increasingly large settlements, a psychological defense mechanism against the fear of death, the error of confusing dream reality with external reality, and so on), but even those reductionist explanations assume the existence of a human capacity to posit the presence of something that is not present to ordinary sensory experience. Yes, it clearly is the case that in human communities with a belief in supernatural beings, that religious belief system was used to encourage pro-social behavior and discourage anti-social behavior, but that constitutes a use of religion, not its origin. It does not account for the origin of the idea – apparently not found in any other living organism on Earth – that there exists a dimension of reality that is different from the space/time/matter/energy dimension that constitutes the physical universe and can be perceived through sensory experience.

Where did that human awareness of Spirit come from? At what point in the evolution of the species and the ongoing development of the brain did the awareness of Spirit become possible? How did early humans deal with that budding spiritual awareness, an awareness that would have preceded the subsequent explosion of religious ideas and practices that claimed to explain that primal awareness of Spirit?

Unfortunately, the answers to such questions are lost to history, but we can, in a very general sense, trace the emergence and development of the human awareness of Spirit, as over time it has been manifested in the various forms of religious belief and practice: animism, polytheism, monotheism, non-dualism, pantheism, deism, etc., each of which gets expressed and elaborated on in multiple forms in different cultures over different time periods.

But back to the larger point: in this account of the origin of religion, there is no conflict between religion and evolution. Quite to the contrary, evolution is seen as the process through which this Universe develops an entity (humans) with the capacity to intuit the presence of Spirit. If there is no evolution of the human species and no evolution of consciousness, there is no evolution of the sense of Spirit, and hence there is no religion: from that point of view, religion is indebted to, rather than in conflict with, evolution.

This interpretation of the origin of religion sees religion not as the product of a discrete top-down divine revelation but rather as the product of a natural process occurring in the Universe that has led to the emergence of an entity (homo sapiens) that has the evolved capacity to sense the presence of Spirit, the presence of a very real non-material dimension of the Cosmos.

Of course, this evolutionary model of religion (which we will simply refer to as evolutionary religion) will not likely be embraced by traditional fundamentalist theists who wish to interpret ancient sacred texts in an infallible, literalist style. But for those who bring an open mind to the issue, we believe that evolutionary religion provides an opportunity for the contemporary citizen to be a believer without sacrificing their intellectual integrity. One can accept all that scientific knowledge has to offer, including the evolution of the Cosmos, and still assert the reality of Spirit.
 
And the Future Evolution of Religion?

As I argue in Thinking about Religion in the 21st Century: A New Guide for the Perplexed, we appear to be in the midst of a major transitional period from the religions of the past 2500 years to something new. All of the major existing world religions emerged during a period known as the Axial Age, and they have flourished and developed in various expressions across the globe for over two millennia. But there is good reason to believe that their influence is waning: the traditional Axial Age religions simply do not resonate with humans who are fully informed by a 21st century historical, scientific, and multi-cultural sensibility, and we see the consequences of this in the closing of churches, the rise of secularism, the growth of the “spiritual but not religious” identification, and just a widespread general disinterest in religion.
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Of course, new spiritual traditions will eventually emerge to replace the declining Axial Age religions, but here in the early 21st century we are in the awkward moment where post-Axial, evolutionary religion has not yet evolved into something recognizable and workable. Suggestions regarding what a post-Axial religion might look like have been offered in a previous blog (see Where We are Headed: The Second Axial Age and Post-Axial Religion, parts 1 through 6 ) and the nature of post-Axial religion is explored in detail in the second part of Thinking About Religion in the 21st Century.  But the details of what the “religions of the future” will look like are difficult to foresee, especially in light of the likely transformation of the human species itself, as technology leads to the transition from human to post-human. But whatever the post-human world turns out to be like, it certainly will include religion and spirituality, and in a manner that is fully reconciled with science and evolution.
 
 

​Granted that for the past four centuries the relationship between religion and science has been a conflictual one in the West, there is good reason to believe that such conflict will diminish significantly in the coming years as we evolve further and further away from both the limiting parameters of the Axial-based model of religious faith that has dominated Western culture for over 2000 years and away from the dogmatic adherence to naturalism/materialism that has come to dominate the scientific community in much the same way that doctrinal orthodoxy once dominated the church.
 
The  model for Axial faith was based on an a priori acceptance of a sacred text – the Bible for Christians – as the mandatory starting point for valid knowledge of truth or the nature of reality. If one starts from that position, a conflict with science is inevitable, given both the methodology of science and the content of scientific knowledge. If you start out with Biblical literalism as a prerequisite, you’re going to have a difficult time coming to terms with a scientific understanding of the nature of the Cosmos.
 
But that simply will not be a problem in the religion of the future if that religion is no longer dependent on ancient texts for a starting point. If the spirituality of the 21st century and beyond is grounded in empirical experience, or our capacity to sense the Sacred or Spirit, then we are not locked in to concepts of the nature of the world that were developed over two millennia ago. A contemporary, post-Axial spirituality, in which a believer need not make any intellectual or moral sacrifices in order to believe, is one which almost by definition will be open to incorporating whatever the scientific worldview has to offer. If the 21st century spirituality is rooted in a simple awareness of the existence of a transcendent Meaning and Goodness in the Cosmos, unattached to any specific culturally-limited and parochial myths and legends, then the opportunity for a religion vs. science conflict is far less likely to arise. The new religion, rooted in the Spiritual Minimalism which we described in a previous post, of the post-Axial Age is one which finds no basis to challenge science.
 
At the same time, however, we should recognize that science also is likely to make certain adjustments that will further facilitate a reconciliation with religion. For starters, science itself will hopefully become less dogmatic and recognize that while the scientific method is a remarkable tool for understanding the realm of matter/energy as it exists in space/time, such a comprehensive understanding of the natural world does not preclude the existence of a spiritual dimension, which, by its every definition, stands outside of or transcends the natural realm. Science tells us a lot about the world of “stuff” – but it tells us nothing about the spiritual dimension of meaning and value. In addition, as we have indicated earlier, many in the scientific community already recognize that the scientific dogmatism that sees reality in strictly materialist and mechanistic terms is no longer credible in light of the findings of how the quantum world functions.
 
So neither religion nor science is going away, but both are changing, and changing in rather dramatic and significant ways such that the centuries-old conflict between them will continue to diminish. Early in the 20th century, the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead spoke of the need for a “deeper religion and more subtle science,” and that appears to be what is slowly emerging. The spirituality of the 21st century will be “deeper” in the sense that it will be free from adherence to ancient texts and the parochial mythological worldviews found in those texts, and rooted in a spiritually open empiricism. Science of the 21st century will be more subtle in the sense that it will be freed from a reductionist, deterministic, simplistic materialism and liberated from the hubris of 20th century science’s parochial notion that science alone provides a true and comprehensive explanation of the nature of reality. Science will be open to the existence of Mystery, and religion will be open to the experience of Mystery, in all of its glorious multiplicity of manifestations.
 
 

​While we can only make vague guesses about what the many dimensions of the post-Axial religion of the 21st century and beyond will look like, we can probably assert with considerable confidence that the future religion will be one characterized by an embrace of religious pluralism and a rejection of exclusivism. The notion that there is only one true religion and that religions can be neatly categorized into “true” and “false” is already rapidly disappearing among many populations, and the pluralistic appreciation of a multiplicity of spiritual beliefs and practices will likely, over time,  become the new norm. The exclusivist assertion that there is only one true religion, one true revelation, and one true path to salvation is simply not credible to people whose perspective is fully informed by study of the history of religions, which exposes the sociopolitical factors that influence the formation of each religion, and the study of World Religions, which demonstrates the multiple commonalities between traditions.
 
We already see a movement away from the traditional exclusivist norm as, for instance, the traditional boundaries between various branches of Christianity are dissolving, with practicing Lutherans being quite comfortable attending a Presbyterian service or even a Catholic Mass, and indeed with many Protestants not even familiar with the theological differences that once created a sharp and often acrimonious wall between different denominations. Today many Protestant Christians would be hard-pressed to describe the theological differences between, for instance, Lutheranism, Methodism, and Presbyterianism, and many mainline Protestant congregations are populated by members simply by virtue of family tradition rather than theological choice.
 
This openness to other traditions also extends beyond the different branches of one’s own faith and into completely different traditions, as we see Christians and Jews practicing Buddhist meditation and participating in Hindu religious festivals.
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We appear to be heading for what Duane Bidwell has referred to as believers who are “spiritually fluid” (see Bidwell’s When One Religion Isn’t Enough:  The Lives of Spiritually Fluid People). Rather than feeling a need to be confined to one tradition, the spiritually fluid believers (which appear to be rapidly increasing in numbers) do not identify with any one tradition, but feel comfortable drawing different elements of their spiritual life from different religions. The spiritually fluid believer might, for instance, participate in a Christian Mass, practice Buddhist meditation, hold a worldview derived from Hindu Vedanta, and read Confucius for ethical guidance, all the while seeing no conflict in the blending of various traditions and not exclusively identifying with any one of them. To the spiritually fluid believer, being religious does not require identification with a specific historical tradition, but rather consists of an acceptance of and commitment to spiritual reality that transcends association with any particular expression of faith.
 
This embrace of pluralism and movement toward spiritual fluidity doesn’t mean that we are necessarily headed toward some sort of universal, global One Religion. Spiritual beliefs and practices are influenced by many variables, some reflecting differences in personality and taste, some reflecting local traditions, and countless other subtle differences in human personality and culture that lead to a preference for one rather than another mode of spirituality. These factors will likely ensure that, as the religion of the future slowly evolves, it will develop along branches that reflect these many differences in preference, but the new normal in which such variations exist will almost certainly be one which strongly affirms religious pluralism.
 
 

​Given that the sense of moral goodness and duty to act virtuously is a universal element of religion, it would follow that if religion evolves, our sense of moral responsibility also should be expected to evolve.
 
If we look at the long term, big picture evolution of human morality, we see a gradual expansion of our sense of moral obligation from family to tribe to village to larger political units such as states and nations. What, then, will be the next step in what has so far been an ever-expanding sense of human moral responsibility? What will morality in a post-Axial Age spirituality look like?
 
First, our sense of spiritually-grounded moral obligation likely will extend to the entire human species, not just to one’s “own” group, whether that be a church, nation, ethnic group, or whatever. For many contemporary believers, that sense of moral obligation has already been extended to its maximum breadth within the human community through a sense of moral obligation to all humans, regardless of religion, ethnicity, race, gender, nationality, etc. The notion of a “brotherhood (or sisterhood) of man (or humanity)” is hardly a new idea, and its origins can be seen even in the teachings of Axial traditions (Jesus extending the sense of moral obligation beyond his Jewish followers to the Gentiles, the Buddha teaching the importance of extending compassion and other moral virtues to people of all castes). In real life, of course, this sense of a moral commitment to the entire species is often forgotten and sullied by its confused connection with various forms of religious exclusivism (moral obligations only to fellow true believers), nationalism (moral obligation only to God’s chosen nation), and similar limiting perspectives. Nonetheless, over the course of the 20th century, and especially among the post-Baby Boomer generation that has grown up with a previously unknown global ecological awareness and more informed recognition of the consequences of many aspects of modern human technologies, we find that the sense of community with the entire human species to be more and more the norm rather than the exception. Such a trend is likely to continue, and the moral teachings of the religion of the future will reflect this sense of the need to treat all of humanity in a virtuous manner.
 
But we would suggest that there are also signs that the expansion of our sense of moral responsibility is already extending even beyond the human species and evolving into a sense of moral responsibility to all living beings.
 
The ethicist Peter Singer has coined the term “speciesism” to describe and criticize the traditional approach to morality in which we treat one species (human) as more deserving of moral consideration than other species, whether plant or animal. Singer argues that speciesism, like racism and sexism, are relics of a morality which humanity is growing out of. We already see the early signs of the emergence of what might be called a “trans-human” morality in the growth of vegetarianism and veganism (growing to the point that even fast-food restaurant chains now offer plant-based alternatives to beef and chicken) and the growing popularity of organizations and movements devoted to natural conservation, environmental protection, and ethical treatment of animals. One might speculate that given these trends, just as today’s believers look back critically at earlier religious moralities that were confined to one’s own tribe and identified sexist and racist behavior as morally acceptable, religious people in the future might someday look back at today’s nationalist and speciesist morality as similarly primitive and brutal.
 
This movement toward a trans-human global ethic is explored by Ervin Laszlo, who sees the evolutionary development of the human species as heading into a post-Axial Age in which human consciousness will become more attuned to our trans-human connections and consequently a similarly expanded ethic will eventually develop. As our concept of God/Spirit/the Sacred expands, so will our sense of ethical responsibility:
 
When people evolve transpersonal consciousness they become aware of their deep ties to each other, to the biosphere, and to the cosmos. They develop greater empathy with people and cultures near and far and greater sensitivity to animals, plants, and the entire biosphere (Laszlo, Quantum Shift in the Global Brain, 125)
 
Again, this will be problematic for those who cling to Axial religions and their less expansive moral teachings, and as with basic beliefs as discussed above, it will take time to develop a more detailed set of post-Axial moral principles. But whatever form those principles take is sure to be one which is certain to reflect a moral commitment on a global scale, covering not only all humans but all sentient beings.

​Let’s continue with our brief look at what a post-Axial religion might look like, with each aspect to be covered in more depth in later posts.
 
Our traditional religions, rooted in Axial Age spirituality, tend to be belief-oriented. That is to say, being religious is understood as primarily a cognitive act of choosing to think that certain propositions as defined in specific creeds, sacred texts, dogmas, theologies, etc., are true. However, the credibility of sacred texts and detailed doctrinal beliefs has been significantly diminished by the epistemological humility which, in the previous post, has been as deriving from a recognition of the cultural and historical contextual nature of all such doctrinal statements.
 
But if the future of religion is not grounded in doctrine, dogma, and reliance on divinely revealed sacred texts, then what will it be based on? What’s left as the basis for religious faith once our confidence in these traditional Axial Age factors has been substantially diminished?
 
We are suggesting that the religion of the future will likely be less rooted in declarative statements, theological arguments, and stories from ancient texts, and more grounded in the everyday awareness of the sacred quality of reality that remains available to people of faith even after the legitimacy of the doctrines and texts of the past have lost much of their credibility.
 
In a sense, this will simply be a return to a meaning of “faith” that brings us back to the origins of religion and that from which the verbal expressions of faith (texts, doctrine, dogma, etc.) derive. Belief in a proposition about a historical event whose veracity must be accepted without evidence, or in “blind faith,” is quite different from belief in a statement about the nature of reality that can be confirmed by one’s own immediate awareness, or experiential faith. In the present era when many of the traditional bases for religious faith are no longer credible for much of the educated population that thinks in 21st century terms, religious experience stands out as the most reliable, substantial, unassailable basis for belief in a spiritual reality.
 
This doesn’t mean that future believers all will be full-blown mystics who walk around in something like altered states of consciousness rooted in intense, prolonged non-dual experiences of the Sacred. Such overwhelming, rapturous nature of a mystical experience is just one type of spiritual experience. Equally valid and compelling is the everyday, ordinary sense of a spiritual dimension to the Cosmos, an often vague but also confident sense that there really is “Something More” than a Universe of time, space, matter, and energy. This perception of a Spiritual dimension does not require intensive and difficult spiritual practices leading to a clearly identifiable moment of overwhelming spiritual illumination. Certainly such extraordinary religious experiences happen, and they are profoundly meaningful in the spiritual lives of those who have them. But for the everyday person of faith who has neither the opportunity nor the interest to pursue the rigorous practices that lead to such experiences, there is the simple, humble, easily acquired sense of Something – a Something which is supremely Good and which confers meaning to the Cosmos, even in spite of the daily messes, challenges, and tragedies of normal, everyday human existence. Leaving doctrines and sacred texts aside, each person still has access to those subtle, quiet, yet powerfully meaningful moments when one senses the presence of Spirit, the presence of the indefinable Something More that has never been adequately captured in doctrinal statements or pronouncements in sacred texts.
 
We can already see the emergence of this more experientially-oriented approach to religion in the growth of the “spiritual but not religious” population. Numerous polls have consistently found a steady growth in the number of people who, on the one hand, do not consider themselves to be “religious” in the sense of formally belonging to an existing tradition or accepting the doctrines of a given faith, while on the other hand identifying as “believers” in the sense of affirming the existence of a spiritual reality. In a sense, this trend is the leading edge of what might likely continue to evolve from a fringe movement to the most common expression of religion in the future: experiential, or empirical spirituality.