I am a none. Chances are,
every fourth person you meet
on the street is a none, too. So
are many of your friends, relatives,
and business associates. |
What is a none? It is an individual
who claims no religious identity
or affiliation. Nones find
meaning in life without the help of organized religion.
According to recent surveys, nones are the fastest
growing religious group in the country, comprising
close to 25% of the population. |
Nones tend to lean to the left on political and social
issues because they are free of the rigid constraints of infallible
scripture. They see the world in varying shades of gray, not the black/white
ideology of pious conservatism. |
For example, nones know a human embryo bears
little resemblance to a thinking, breathing adult, and
therefore typically support stem-cell research and a womans
right to end her early pregnancy. Nones are
also more tolerant of homosexuals. We have no Bible
telling us their lifestyle is an abomination, so we
tend to see them not as freakish sinners but rather as
responsible, caring adults who are entitled to the same
medical, legal and financial protections enjoyed by the
rest of us.
|
Whereas zealots spout on about hellfire and
damnation, nones preach love and respect. Many
mainstream religious denominations embrace a similar
humanistic philosophy. If he were alive today, I suspect
Jesus would, too.
|
If a none doesnt embrace spirituality
in the
supernatural sense, what gives life significance? I cant
answer for everyone, but for me it is science. Science
is my banquet its what gives me my inspiration.
There is more wonder in one chapter of an introductory
astronomy text than in any ten Bibles. If you want to
be blown away by the magnificence of creation, forget
Genesis. Pick up a book by Richard Dawkins on evolution
or by Stephen Hawking on Big Bang cosmology.
The scientific explanations will numb you with amazement.
|
Science is not for the faint of heart, though. If
youre looking for confirmation that humans occupy a
special place in the universe, dont pick up a science book.
In the few hundred years that science has prospered,
our egos have taken quite a bruising. Science
shows us the world as it truly is, not how we wish it to
be and certainly not how a misogynistic 2000-yearold
nomadic tribal society envisioned it.
|
With science you get no guarantee of an afterlife,
no preferred position at the right-hand of God, and no cosmic balancing-of-the-scales
in the end. What you do get is a contradictory universe: one that
is uncaring and often cruel, and yet at the same time endlessly wondrous
and awe-inspiring.
|
So it will be the 60% of Americans who are currently
indifferent to these matters who will eventually
decide which way the pendulum swings.
|
Will we continue down the path of secular
humanism and the scientific advances it produces, or
will we succumb to our superstitious fears and plunge
once again into a religious Dark Age?
|
God only knows. But one thing is for certain:
we nones are here to stay.
|