William Ralph Inge (Idea of Progress, 1920)

Can Mankind survive without region? For centuries this question has been asked and the same response is received over and over again: we just do not know. Karen Armstrong, author of the essay, “Does God Have a Future?,” examines the realities of the varying ideas of divinity and spirituality. She carfully identifies many different conceptions of God throughout history and suggests that concepts of the divine are not absolute, but emerge out of specific moments in human history. Does this mean that spirituality is only evident when it is convenient? Do people nowadays simply not have the time to be spirityal? Robert Wuthnow, author of “Making Choices: From Short-Term Adjustments to Principled Lives,” seems to agree that people are just too busy for God. He insists on a need for an “ideal moral discourse” (696) to discard autonomous decision-making and enhance spirituality and individual decision-making techniques. This “technique,” so to speak, was even exhibited in John Krakhauer’s essay “Into the Wild” where the lead character, Chris McCandless’

McCandless was searching for his own spirituality. He was escaping the traditional life of “customary morality,” vowing not to return until he “killed the false being within” of autonomous civilization, with his victory being a “spiritual revolution.” He was tired of believing what everyone else did just because it was the thing that “had always been done.” Chris was unknowingly using Wuthnow’s reflective morality to question traditional beliefs. He felt society was “poisoning” him with their lack of individuality and lack of identity. This is how I feel religion acts upon society. Organized religions restrict individual identities and limit personal decision-making abilities. Speaking of God, Armstong writes, “An omnipotent, all-knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who made everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled” (72). A God who interferes with human freedom and creativity is a tyrant. This clearly places limits on spirituality of the individual. In a way, the notion of God is “poison” to society, it has lost its meaning of “providence and immortality,” an now there is only “fear and doubt” (72) left among people. If something (namely God) was once seen as the only explanation to all that was good, and now is perceived as dead or a lie, it tends to make people reflect on ancient explanations, question these explanations, and generate new ideas. This was Wuthnow’s theory, but Armstrong proved it by explaining all the different religions we have these days. Each religion used reflective morality to answer unknown q

Some topics in this essay:
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